OK, you gotta see this.

I'd say the story "U.S. obeys order to abandon checkpoints" is one that could be used to really tick off the GOP's wingnut base. Let's get them asking themselves, and their party: Why is the U.S. taking orders from foreign governments? If we want checkpoints around a city controlled by a crazy Islamofascist cleric's militia, then by God we should keep the checkpoints, not listen to some Iraqi stooge who wants to make the cleric happy!

I'd say the story "U.S. obeys order to abandon checkpoints" is one that could be used to really tick off the GOP's wingnut base. Let's get them asking themselves, and their party: Why is the U.S. taking orders from foreign governments? If we want checkpoints around a city controlled by a crazy Islamofascist cleric's militia, then by God we should keep the checkpoints, not listen to some Iraqi stooge who wants to make the cleric happy!

So maybe this is a good time for someone to ask him: What is our strategy in Iraq?

http://www.youtube.com/...

Anyone notice what's missing from this dialog?

Box turtle, Nov 99:
While Bowie has warned against seeing these songs as autobiographical, they largely concern a man of his age in bittersweet review of the passing years.

Q. magazine, Nov 99:
While Bowie has warned against seeing these songs as autobiographical - although they largely concern a man of his age, in bittersweet review of the passing years - they at least sound inhabited.

Doctor: City high in drug abuse

ER physician says substances range from heroin to alcohol

By Jeremy Schwartz
When David E. Blanchard came to Corpus Christi three years ago to become the chief of the emergency room at Christus Spohn Hospital Memorial, he was a 20-year veteran, having worked at hospitals in Chicago, Arizona and Victoria.

But it only took a month at the city's busiest emergency room to discover that Corpus Christi wasn't like the other places he had worked.

"Corpus is a city highly infested with people using illicit drugs," said Blanchard, 50. "Of all the emergency departments I've worked . . . this is probably the area most populated with drug use."

One Viveca Novak.

Novak. Hmm...any relation?

June 11, 2003:

Cheney: "Bolton saw a State Dept memo that was written yesterday that says this guy Joe Wilson is married to one of your people. Is that true?"

Tenet: "That is classified information sir, but given your clearance I can confirm that. However, that fact has absolutely no bearing on his trip, his findings, or his report to the Agency."

From UPI:

Link to UPI story

President Bush plans to sidestep the Senate on Monday and install controversial nominee John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, an administration official said.

The appointment, which is expected during a White House ceremony this morning, would constitute a so-called recess appointment. Bush, who has refused to surrender the fight over Bolton, has the power to fill vacancies without Senate approval while Congress is in recess.

"Hard evidence." Does this relate to the INR memo?

"Government investigators have specifically asked every witness in this case, including Karl Rove, not to discuss the subject matter of the investigation."

Read that again.

As we know, Scotty is a witness in this case.

Is that why McClellan claims he's been asked by Fitzgerald not to discuss the investigation? Not because he's the WH press secretary, but because he's a witness in this case? Did the prosecutor ask everyone from the administration not to comment, or just witnesses such as McClellan? Sounds like a good question for a reporter to ask McClellan today.

...
Meanwhile, the White House on Wednesday night produced a newly unearthed document on Bush's Guard service, seven months after it said all materials on the subject had been publicly released.

The new document was a copy of Bush's resignation in 1974 declaring he was leaving the Guard because of "inadequate time to fulfill possible future commitments." White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the resignation was found in connection with a lawsuit brought by The Associated Press.
...

Political Shenanigans Have a Precedent

If the documents impugning President Bush's service in the Air National Guard turn out to be a forgery, it won't be the first time such mischief has figured in a presidential election. In fact, the current episode is eerily reminiscent of one that probably determined the outcome of the election of 1880.

That year Republican Rep. James A. Garfield was locked in a close race with a Democratic ticket led by Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock. The economy was in distress, and a contentious issue was whether the importation of low-paid labor from China was contributing to joblessness on the part of native-born Americans. Call it in-sourcing.

Two weeks before the election, an obscure New York City journal, Truth, published a letter purportedly from Garfield to one H.L. Morey, a New England industrialist. In the letter -- marked "Personal and Confidential" -- Garfield expressed the view that the importation of Chinese labor was appropriate, because "companys [sic] have the right to buy labor where they can get it cheapest."

The Morey letter caused an immediate sensation. No one knew where it had come from; the editor of Truth claimed to have found it on his desk. At Democratic headquarters, members of the National Committee examined the letter and pronounced it genuine. Garfield just as quickly denounced it as a forgery.

Handwriting experts were summoned and in a matter of days had concluded that the letter was a clumsy forgery. Two misspellings -- "companys" and "employes [sic]" -- tended to confirm their findings, as did the fact that the envelope bore a stamp rather than Garfield's hand frank. Finally, the Republicans were able to satisfy the country that no person named H.L. Morey had recently lived in Lynn, Mass.

By Election Day it was accepted that the Morey letter was a forgery. Even Democrats were embarrassed; a pro-Hancock paper, the New York Sun, editorialized that "if a party requires such infamous aids . . . [it] deserves to perish."

And perish it did. On Nov. 2, 1880, Garfield was elected president by a popular plurality of only 10,000 votes. Most people thought the Morey letter had made the difference.

JOHN M. TAYLOR

McLean

The writer is a historian whose books include a 1970 biography, "Garfield of Ohio."